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PREFACE.
In giving to the public this volume, it has been the
design to present the operations of the Bureau of the Nation-
al Detective Police during the war, so far as it is proper to
make them known to the people. It is not a book of roman-
tic adventures, but a narrative of fscts in tha secret history
of the conflict, and mainly an exposure of the manifold and
gigantic frauds and crimes of both the openly disloyal and
the professed friends of the Repubfio. Many reports are
introduced, some of which are lengthy, and portions of them
are dry, because they are the oflicial renords of the work
done, and the verification of the statements made, and the
highest vindication 01' the character and importance of the
secret service. Passages occur in them, the propriety of
which many readers may question, but their omission would
have weakened the strength of the reports, and softened
flown the enormity of the offenses charged upon certain
individuals. The whole volume might have been made up
of chapters very similar to those of the first hundred pages
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